No Sign of Credit Crunch Affecting Cricket

Cricket seems to be immune from the current chaos gripping financial markets. Sport has always provided the hope that can temporarily alleviate concern about savings accounts and worry about future job prospects.

It seems surreal that as Iceland declares bankruptcy a row breaks out about the rights to a three-hour match that is worth £10 million to the victors. England opener Alastair Cook admitted last week that money was the sole motivation for England’s players in the Stanford Twenty20 game. “In terms of cricket,” he told a BBC interview, “we know it’s not that important.”

Considering the mess that the world’s bankers have created you might judge Cook’s comments to be rather distasteful. But at least he is saying what everyone else suspects and is providing a moment of honesty.

The real contest for England, according to captain Kevin Pietersen, is next year’s Ashes, which could be seen as discourteous to the Indian hosts of England’s forthcoming tour.

The real contest at present is that between Australia and India. There are a number of sides with a claim to be world number two. Three of them—India, South Africa, and England—will be tested by the Aussies in the coming twelve months.

Watching the current series shows how much the sport has changed. It is evident that India’s Cricket Board, the BCCI, are seeking to stamp their imprint on all aspects of the spectacle of cricket.

The players’ shirts no longer adorn the logo of the national colours, but that of the Board. Similarly the same logo sits obtrusively in the left hand of the television screen and, most uncomfortable of all, is worn on the shirts of the (supposedly neutral) commentators.

Postmodernists assert that the notion of national identity will become increasingly fractured and re-designed in the era of globalisation. But what we have here is something akin to early imperialist ventures where the corporation usurps the state, the East India Company being the best example.

The BCCI have reacted to the Bangladesh exodus to their rival ICL by buying up Sri Lankan cricket. The Sri Lankan Board will be paid a figure of approximately £40 million over the next 10 years.

In return the Sri Lankan Board will pledge full allegiance to the BCCI’s IPL and Champions League Trophy, which means that the proposed tour to England next summer will be minus Sri Lanka’s IPL players, who will be forced by their own Board to put 20 overs cricket for an Indian franchise ahead of playing for their country. This will almost certainly mean a cancellation of the tour to England.

Before England cry foul, let’s remember that they are going out to the Caribbean to play against a West Indies team that is technically—for rights purposes—not the West Indies for no other motive than money.

As Angus Fraser pointed out in The Independent the game is an irrelevance. No trophy of any value will be won and the performances of the players will not appear in their career records. It is nothing more than an exhibition game.

The relegation of national interest to domestic concerns was also revealed last week by Kent who refused to release South African all-rounder Ryan McLaren from his three-year contract. McLaren, is on a Kolpak deal until 2010, which rules him out of representing his country of birth. Kent have argued that they have built their side around this promising all-rounder, but are reluctant to redesignate him as their overseas player.

The consequences of capitalism’s latest slump will become apparent over the next two or three years, the same is also true of the latest developments in cricket. Greed got us into this financial crisis, it is a lesson that those who want to impose their commercial blueprint on cricket need to wake up to.